Cynical Algeria Deserved Their Victory

The Final of the Africa Cup of Nations was a disgrace, a game settled by a freakish second-minute goal and then systematically spoiled by Algeria.

- Jonathan Wilson

In a grim sense, that made it the perfect climax for the competition, bringing together two key themes of the previous month: that Algeria were the best side in Egypt, and that they suffered some weird insecurity that meant that whenever they felt under the slightest pressure they fell back to grappling, moaning and time-wasting. The 1-0 scoreline was in general keeping with the competition as well. The 52 matches in this year’s finals yielded just 102 goals, an average of 1.96 per game – the lowest scoring AFCON since 2002.

Back then, atrocious pitches in Mali were blamed, but in Egypt that was no excuse. These were smooth playing surfaces – which meant that slick passing football was possible for those teams who wanted to play it, as proved by Madagascar.

So why the dearth of goals? In part it was the heat; a problem exacerbated by the tournament’s shift from January/ February to June/July.

The group games that started at 3.30pm local time produced just 1.14 goals per game, while those that kicked off at 5 pm or 6 pm produced 1.57. And those that began at 8 pm or 9 pm were better still, with an average of 2.47 goals.

Put simply, the later games kicked off, the more “normal” they felt. In the heat of the afternoon, players were understandably more concerned with conserving their energy and the pace dropped significantly.

Then there was the structure of the tournament. When the four best third-placed sides go through, as 24 sides filter into a last 16, the group stage can become a slog and too many games have little riding on them.